


The Giving Vein

by Gileonnen



Category: Richard III - Shakespeare
Genre: Bloodplay, D/s, Fraught Declarations of Fealty, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-20
Updated: 2013-02-20
Packaged: 2017-11-29 22:01:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 765
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/691949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Gileonnen/pseuds/Gileonnen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Buckingham must play the loyal footstool once more before his flight.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Giving Vein

**Author's Note:**

  * For [the_alchemist](https://archiveofourown.org/users/the_alchemist/gifts).



> Written for the Histories Ficathon, 2008.

The king prefers to see Buckingham on his knees, hands clasped behind his back in a semblance of restraint. Richard thinks it fitting that subjects should kneel, that their hands should never touch the royal person. Today he is wearing scarlet like a mark of his majesty, while Henry Stafford crouches naked on the stones. There will be bruises upon his knees in the morning, if there isn't blood on his back; he has told himself a dozen times that it is worth this indignity, for Hereford.

His hopes of Hereford now dashed, he does not know why he submits.

"Thy flesh crawls," Richard says, his smile cold; "Methinks in sympathy for mine own mangled flesh."

"Nay, majesty," Buckingham mutters. He prays to the Virgin that Richard will get on with it--draw a knife across his skin, or else touch him with that withered hand, rut against him until he has spent himself. Such things have grown familiar, an accustomed degradation to be borne (and enjoyed; he is not so skillful a liar that he can forget the thrill of pleasure amid the humiliation). "Nay, my flesh longs for yours."

"Longing without sympathy? 'Tis a hard-hearted flesh," the king remarks. "But thou lovest me less well than thou didst ere the morning, and tomorrow thou wilt love me less well yet, as though it is thy design to starve me slowly out."

Buckingham's shoulders fall. He tilts his chin up; he knows that it pleases the king to see his throat bare. "I have ever loved you and you only, dread lord."

"When I have crept into my wife's bed, and lapped up the flushed honey of her skin--thou didst love me? Ay, say thou didst dream that her health would fade, her rose cheek blown and withered." His face is perfectly tranquil. "As the queen languishes from an excess of health, so too might thou languish from an excess of breath." In Richard's ill-made face there is a kind of light, merry and cruel, like the antic expression of a jester who only mimes a crooked body. Suddenly, Henry is aware that this is not their usual game (or perhaps it is, but the usual game has always been more serious than he had dreamed)--he feels with a growing, terrible certainty that his life hangs in the balance more than ever before.

He presses his forehead to the cold stone. "I am your kneeling footstool, lord," he whispers, thinking only of his coming flight to Brecknock. "An it please you deny me air, I shall no more breathe. Use me as you will."

Richard studies him for a long, long moment. Buckingham feels himself laid bare; he imagines the king's eyes unblinking as a reptile's, his good hand restless in his lap. He dares not look up for fear that he has imagined truly.

"Say I have thine heart," says the king.

A trickle of sweat runs down Buckingham's spine, because Richard's voice is gentle. "It is yours."

"A free offer? I could place thine heart in a box, gilded over with a device of a swan in chains. Thy father knew well that the duke is bound to the king," muses Richard. "But thou wouldst be bound to me, more in the countenance of a lapdog than a swan. An all the world should despise Richard, set their dogs upon him and call him fiend--the loyal Buckingham will come gladly to heel."

"I would--in the name of Christ, please--!"

"Heel," the king says, low and intimate as an endearment.

On his knees, hands still clasped behind him, Buckingham crawls painfully across the stone to Richard's chair. He puts his head upon Richard's knee, where twisted fingers tangle in his dark hair. It makes him shudder. It makes him hard.

In time, Richard offers his good hand, and Henry kisses it. "Go," he says, quietly. "It pleases us to be charitable tonight. Go to thy bed. Wait there for me."

Buckingham gets to his feet, trembling and clumsy, his knees shaking under him. He gathers his clothes with haste and dresses, unable to meet Richard's eyes. The king is watching him, that curious and penetrating gaze following his motions as he slides cloth over skin.

He cannot help looking back, though, when he reaches the door. To his surprise, Richard is looking away. His back is hunched more than humped, his chin resting on his good hand. In profile, his expression is unreadable, but there is something lost and almost wistful in it.

He closes the door behind him.


End file.
